I know that there is nothing good for them but to rejoice and to do well in their life;
The Preacher has just admitted that man cannot trace God's work from beginning to end. This verse is what he concludes from that. The advice sounds simple: be glad, do good. But is it giving up, or is it wisdom — and is joy something a person earns or receives?
The verse gives a searcher's result. It answers a question the previous verses raise, and it comes with a condition:
What then is the good? Man is in such a condition, with such constant changes, and with an unsatisfied feeling of the infinite in his heart. Where can he turn? The searcher gives his results. Let man rejoice and do good in his life. Let him eat and drink and enjoy the food of all his labour. But let him also do it in the fear of God, with God's judgment in view. This is about as far as the natural man can see.
The phrase carries a verdict on man, and it traces even what he enjoys from his own work back to God:
It is wholesome for man to feel how little he can find out, from beginning to end, of the work that God is doing. So the Preacher states his conviction: there is nothing better for them — nothing good in them — but to rejoice and to do good. In His work God had shown only what is excellent and fitting, whatever man or Satan had done against it. Man should trust Him. He is gifted, yet he lives in a scene altogether beyond him. And then what must the Maker be? As a man, he is to receive what his nature needs. It is provided for him without grudging, so that he may see or enjoy good in all his labour. What could man's toil have achieved, unless it were God's gift?
The counsel fits a creature who only ever gets a stretch of days:
This chapter shows man that he lives in a time state. There is a time for everything "under the heaven," but only "a time." God made everything beautiful in its time… During this time state God is working out His own end. Man lives in time, but what God does lasts for ever.
One account shows how the second half of the verse can land. At a student dinner someone quoted it in Latin, and a monk snapped back:
He was dining with a company of fellow students. One of the party quoted Ecclesiastes 3:12 from the Latin Vulgate: "There is nothing better than to be merry and to do well!" "A curse on that 'do well!'" exclaimed an ill-tempered monk who was present; "I wish it were beyond the sea." Latimer was startled. "I understand it now," he said; "that will be a heavy 'do well' for these monks when they have to give God an account of their lives."
There is a reason the counsel stops where it does:
There is no question in it of grace or of redemption. It is the experience of a man — and he a king with wisdom and riches — about human life. He tries to solve all the contradictions that exist in the world while he views them "under the sun." Only the wisdom that comes from above can solve them, or leave them unsolved in peace.
The Preacher weighs good done "under the sun." One writer weighs the same work on another scale:
Happy, serious, simple lesson! The highest achievements or richest prosperity in things under the sun are all vanity. But the smallest service to the Lord has the value of eternity in it — even giving a cup of cold water in His name.
- Limit. Man cannot trace God's work from start to finish, and feeling that limit is healthy, not humiliating.
- Verdict. Man finds nothing good in himself. So "nothing better" means: stop searching, and trust the Maker whose work is excellent and fitting.
- Gift. Joy is not produced by toil. What a person's labour brings him to enjoy is handed to him.
- Weight. "Do good" is the half that costs. It becomes a heavy "do well" when God asks a man for an account of his life.
- Reach. The counsel stretches only "as long as they live." Man lives in time, but what God does lasts for ever, and the smallest service to the Lord carries that value.
yea also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy good in all his labour, it is the gift of God.
Ecclesiastes 3:13 ends a long look at time, seasons, and human toil, and it lands on something ordinary: food, drink, and enjoyment in work. Is that a small prize for a life no one can figure out, or a real gift from God?
Ecclesiastes records a deliberate experiment. One writer describes the whole book as the report of a man who kept his wisdom so he could weigh the results.
The Book of Ecclesiastes is, up to a certain point, the opposite of the Book of Proverbs. It is the experience of a man who keeps his wisdom, so that he may judge everything. He tests everything under the sun that could be supposed able to make people happy. He tries the enjoyment of everything that human capacity can imagine as a means of joy. The effect of this trial was the discovery that all is vanity and a chasing after wind. Every effort to be happy in possessing the earth, in whatever way, ends in nothing.
Verse 11 says no one can find out what God has done from beginning to end. Verse 13 gives the practical conclusion of a man standing inside that limit.
What then is the good? What can a man in such a condition turn to? The changes never stop, and he has an unsatisfied feeling of the infinite in his heart. The searcher gives his results. Let man rejoice and do good in his life. Let him eat and drink and enjoy the food of all his labour. But let him also do so fearing God, in view of God's judgment. This is about as far as the natural man can see.
The verse does not say a man earns his enjoyment by working hard. It calls the whole thing a gift:
As man, he is to receive what his nature needs, given freely so that he may see or enjoy good in all his labour. What could man's toil have gained, unless it were God's gift?
The writer returns to this thought later in the book. There he separates two things: having good things, and being able to enjoy them. Both come from the same hand.
If God has given him riches and wealth and the capacity to enjoy it, then he ought to take his portion and rejoice in his labour. Such a spirit of enjoyment will make him forget the evil in his day; it will carry him over the disagreeable things of life. "For God answers him in the joy of his heart." The last phrase means that God Himself corresponds to his joy. Real enjoyment is a spirit that acknowledges God.
The quoted line follows an older translation; the ESV reads, "God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart."
If enjoyment is a gift, then the difference between two people eating the same meal is not the meal.
Take it simply as it stands. I enjoyed my breakfast this morning, and I thanked God for it. A person may say he enjoys his food because he is hungry. That is eating the way a pig eats. But if you thank God for it, it is another thing. Then you enjoy it as given by God.
That thankfulness is not an optional extra. Scripture treats its absence as a mark of people who have drifted from God:
From the beginning God showed by special revelation, both before and after the fall, that plant and animal food alike are His gifts to man. He gave them for man's support (Genesis 1:29-30; 9:3). He has never failed to send rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling people's hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:17). What a constant reason for thankfulness to Him! But sadly, Scripture records a clear mark of people's sinful departure from God and forgetfulness of His mercies: "they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him" (Romans 1:21).
Notice what verse 13 does not claim. It is real light, but not the full answer.
Let us note carefully what this is. It is simply making the most of every material thing "under the sun" — looking at things only from an earthly viewpoint. So it teaches us that, apart from the revelation God has given, man's history is hopeless misery. How wonderful is the contrast in the New Testament! It presents the Lord Jesus Christ, His revelation of the glory of God, and the eternal inheritance of the saints in light.
- Gift. Food, drink and satisfaction in work are not wages. No amount of labour could produce them unless God gave them.
- Capacity. God gives both the portion and the power to enjoy it; without the second, the first is empty.
- Thanks. You meet the gift at the table — thanking God turns eating from appetite into receiving.
- Limit. The verse comes from a man who cannot trace God's work from beginning to end. It is wisdom inside the dark, not light shining out of it.
- Beyond. Ecclesiastes reaches only as far as life "under the sun". The fuller answer comes with Christ and the inheritance He brings.